


Farewell, Piccadilly

by ottermo



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen, Hats, Let's Write Cabin Pressure April Challenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 20:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1401907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Let's Write Cabin Pressure's April Challenge: 26 vignettes of 260 words each, ending with words beginning with A through to Z. Who knows if this is a thing that I will finish. But it's definitely one I've started.</p><p>I have never been more at a loss for a title, so I googled the lyrics to It's A Long Way To Tipperary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Farewell, Piccadilly

This one’s brilliant white, the sash a reddish-burgundy colour. Better quality, heavier. It takes longer to forget he’s wearing it, the extra weight just noticeable.

It looks _good_ , he decides, catching sight of himself in the mirror. He looks like the kind of person others take seriously. Goodness knows he’s waited long enough for that.

It’s a noble hat, one might say, with a look of high expectations, as if time spent wearing this hat ought to prove itself worthy.

The likelihood of this hat ever coming into contact with spaghetti, cooked or dry, is extremely small. This hat will never touch a forehead inscribed with hypothetical lipstick, and never again will he have to defend a questionably large amount of gold braid.

And if one thing in the world can be depended on, it’s that this hat will never, ever have a lemon taped to the top of it.

Martin checks his licence one final time before stepping out of the apartment. It’s in its zip-pocket, where it always is.

It’s a short journey to the airport, but he finds himself swallowed by the unfamiliar outside world, a vast jumble of discordant rhythms that he’ll never organise into a melody.

Things, he thinks, do not have to be perfect to be missed. That’s why he misses the amiable mockery which used to lounge where distant politeness now perches, ramrod straight. That’s why he still hears easy, baritoned sarcasm in the gaps between his sentences.

That’s why this hat – however noble – will always itch, faintly, for a lemon, after all.


End file.
